Poems

Swallows

They dip their wings in the sunset,They dash against the airAs if to break themselves upon its stillness:In every movement, too swift to count,Is a revelry of indecision,A furtive delight in trees they do not desireAnd in grasses that shall not know their weight.

They hover and lean toward the meadowWith little edged cries;And then,As if frightened at the earth’s nearness,They seek the high austerity of evening skyAnd swirl into its depth.

This poem is in the public domain.

Leonora Speyer was born in Washington, D.C., in 1872. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1927 for her poetry collection Fiddler’s Farewell (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926)

About This Poem

More by Leonora Speyer

I will not walk in the wood to-night,
I will not stand by the water’s edge
And see day lie on the dusk’s bright ledge
Until it turn, a star at its breast,
To rest.
I will not see the wide-flung hills
Closing darkly about my grief,
I wore a crown of their lightest leaf,
But now they press like a cold, blue ring,
Imprisoning.
I dare not meet that caroling blade,
Jauntily drawn in the sunset pine,
Stabbing me with its thrust divine,
Knowing my naked, aching need,
Till I bleed.
Sheathe your song, invincible bird,
Strike not at me with that flashing note,
Have pity, have pity, persistent throat,
Deliver me not to your dread delight
To-night!
I am afraid of the creeping wood,
I am afraid of the furtive trees,
Hiding behind them, memories,
Ready to spring, to clutch, to tear,
Wait for me there.

Fearless riders of the gale,
In your bleak eyes is the memory
Of sinking ships:
Desire, unsatisfied,
Droops from your wings.
You lie at dusk
In the sea’s ebbing cradles,
Unresponsive to its mood;
Or hover and swoop,
Snatching your food and rising again,
Greedy,
Unthinking.
You veer and steer your callous course,
Unloved of other birds;
And in your soulless cry
Is the mocking echo
Of woman’s weeping in the night.

I had a sudden vision in the night—I did not sleep, I dare not say I dreamed—Beside my bed a pallid ladder gleamedAnd lifted upward to the sky's dim height: And every rung shone strangely in that light,And every rung a woman's body seemed,Outstretched, and down the sides her long hair streamed,And you—you climbed that ladder of delight!

You climbed, sure-footed, naked rung by rung,Clasped them and trod them, called them by their name,And my name too I heard you speak at last;You stood upon my breast the while and flungA hand up to the next! And then—oh shame—I kissed the foot that bruised me as it passed.